


every moment after

by whirling



Series: inception bingo 2018 [3]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fanart, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, this one's sadder than my other bingo fics oops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-27 00:38:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15674505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whirling/pseuds/whirling
Summary: Arthur bought an iced coffee and didn’t buy a donut and thought of Eames but didn’t think that Eames was gone.





	every moment after

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/143002538@N05/29081609517/in/dateposted-public/)

Eames disappears on a Monday. 

Eames disappears on a Monday, and this is how it goes: Arthur wakes up, he walks to Dunkin Donuts for an iced coffee, and he thinks of Eames when his eyes catch on a pink frosted donut. Eames loves those, but Eames is supposed to be back on Wednesday, so Arthur doesn’t buy one. He pays for the coffee and doesn’t pay for the donut, and the door closes behind him as he leaves. 

Arthur bought an iced coffee and didn’t buy a donut and thought of Eames but didn’t think that Eames was gone. 

* * *

Arthur finds out that Eames disappeared on a Wednesday. 

The day’s agenda consists of: wait for Eames, skim the manual for their broken coffee machine, pretend there’s anything else to do. By tacit agreement, they have been checking in with each other every day, but they also understand that there is no use getting into a fuss unless either is out of communication for more than a few days. Arthur checks his phone as he sits in their apartment, flipping through the unintelligible jargon of the manual, and then he goes for a walk. 

Arthur buys a pink frosted donut, but he doesn’t buy any coffee. He isn’t worried; why should he be? He and Eames aren’t exactly new to dreamshare, and besides, they’ve both stopped taking jobs that are so risky there’s no way to contact the other. Inception was excitement enough, and even that gig had cell service. 

Arthur waits and he thinks of Eames but he doesn’t think that Eames is missing, not until he does.

* * *

Complacency settles in slowly, winds its roots far and deep so as to tear everything out at once. (Stupid. Stupid to tie everything to one person and let his loss rip it all apart.) But they were _so close_ to getting out. 

* * *

“I think I want to be done,” Arthur says, eyebrows flying up as he hears himself. They’re folding laundry on top of their bed, the pile a jumble of their things. Eames pauses, Arthur’s favorite waistcoat in hand.  
“With the laundry? So do I; that’s why we’re both doing it.” Arthur knows this is Eames giving him an out, and takes a second to breathe against how much he loves him. Arthur looks up from the sweater in his hand, because he has to look at Eames for this one.  
“I think I want to be done with dreamshare.” It feels better this time, now that he’s saying it on purpose.  
“Yeah, alright.” Eames throws his agreement out nonchalantly, like Arthur isn’t having a great revelation for the first time. “You haven’t enjoyed it since Mal.” They’re both at the point where her name is warm in their mouths, her loss blunted by time. Eames is right. Arthur is a good point man, and he likes the research, the control, the satisfaction, but the dreams themselves are never his own, never something he can control. Arthur is tired of dictating the foundations of someone else’s dreams.  
“We don’t need the money,” Arthur says. Eames sighs, and looks at him for a second.  
“You can list these points out, but I already agree and I support you.” Arthur grimaces, and continues anyway.  
“We don’t need the money.” He drapes the sweater over one arm and ticks each point off on his fingers. “I’m not enjoying it, there are reckless kids entering the field, and I don’t— huh. I think. I want to settle down. With you.” Eames meets his gaze steadily.  
“I was thinking that too, yeah? Dreamshare’s too corporate now. No room for imagination.” Eames matches Arthur step for step, bullet point for bullet point. “And I’d want to settle down with you, if I had to settle down with anybody.”  
“You don’t have to settle down with—”  
“We’re married, Arthur. It’s a little late for that, love.”  
“No— I mean.” Arthur taps his fingers impatiently on the bed. “You don’t have to settle at all. I don’t need to hold you down. I’ll stay in it, or follow you, if you want.” Arthur needs this, to work his way around every possibility, every snag that his brain has been trained to suss out. Eames tosses down the waistcoat to pull Arthur into a hug. Arthur lets out a halfhearted mutter at the poor garment’s fate and then lets himself relax.  
“I want you to be happy. I want to exist in whichever future holds a happy Arthur; I don’t need a job for that. I’m not saying I don’t want to dream, or travel. I know you wouldn’t ask that of me.” Eames presses a kiss into Arthur’s neck. “It would be a pleasure to quit dreamshare with you, darling.” Arthur leans back, wriggling around a bit to meet Eames’ mouth with his own. 

* * *

There was no one point at which Arthur knew for sure that Eames was gone, is the thing. 

There wasn’t a text from Eames saying “I’m missing!” and there wasn’t a flash rumor that his team had vanished. Arthur never had that rug-pulled-out jolt, the shock of his chair being kicked from under him. He thinks that maybe he understands Wile E. Coyote, sprinting over a cliff’s edge and realizing too late, except that when Arthur looks down, the ground is solid under his feet. How can he be certain there was a drop at all?

There was just when Eames was supposed to be there and every moment after that. 

Arthur resents Cobb’s tidy timeline. He’s jealous of Mal’s step by step deconstruction (and _what the fuck, Arthur?_ ). He knows he’ll never see Eames in his dreams, not now that Eames is synonymous with absence, not now that Eames is never going to mean anything other than loss. 

* * *

Eames disappears on a Monday. 

Arthur finds out on Wednesday.

Arthur can’t think about Eames without thinking about that Eames is gone. 

The clothes sit in their drawers, perfectly folded.

**Author's Note:**

> This fills the "Missing and presumed dead" square on my bingo card (3 out of 3!)
> 
> Also, big thanks to Angie and Eve as well as the Inception slack, all of whom helped me actually get out here and post things in fandom!


End file.
